40 Years, 40 Disney Movies: Counting Down to Daddy’s Birthday Night 12 – Pinocchio!

Fate is kind. She brings to those who love.

So yeah, here comes yet another installment in the DADDY’S 40TH HOW-DO-YOU-DO MOVIETHON. And for this one, we are yet again cracking my top 5. Which means we only have one top 5’er left. Yeah I know. We planned this out very poorly.

SO I am sure based on that quote above (and I mean the title, hurr durr), you guessed that we did Pinnochio..

Nope, not that one

Not that one either

Nope

Err….

There you go.

The food

For food, we had a few different Strombolis (Italian, meatball, chicken parm and gypsy), Figaro fries and when you wish upon a star sugar cookies.

The activity

For this movie, of course we made puppets. Doy. And then the kids put on a puppet show. I made a dragon, Nickie made a bear (I think?), Myles made a sea otter and Owen made a pig. Hm a bear, a sea otter, a pig and a…dragon? One of these kids is doing his own thing.

The movie

Pinocchio ranks in my top 5 Disney movies of all-time for a number of reasons. I love me some Figaro and Cleo. Jiminy Cricket was such a great sidekick that he has become a Disney icon.  And “When You Wish Upon a Star?” For. Get. It. It’s got a lot of what makes most great Disney movies great. And it’s also FRAKKIN TERRIFYING. There are 5 legitimate villains. Not henchmen. Legit bad guys. Honest John and Gideon kidnap him and send him to a sadistic puppet master AND a dude that REALLY wants to get his hands on some little boys. Stromboli said that when Pinnochio gets a little old, he’s literally going to chop him up. The coachman brings little boys to this island, turns them into donkeys and then sells them. Like, what? Bro is seriously terrifying. And then there is Monstro. A whale so terrifying fish go running when they hear his name. He’s a badass mammal.

But at it’s core, Pinocchio (btw, spell check hates me trying to spell that today) is a morality play though, right? If Pinocchio does the right thing, he will become a little boy. And if he doesn’t lie, he won’t have birds nesting on his nose. But, as in life, every turn is fraught with temptation.

Honestly though, he didn’t have much guidance before being sent off to school. Gepetto seems like a nice enough guy, but maybe a “hey man, don’t trust gypsies” speech would have gone a long way. Overall though, you root for Pinnochio because he is you. We all want to do the right thing. But we all make mistakes. And his punishments? Harsh. He lies, his nose grows. He skips school, he gets kidnapped. He plays pool, he becomes a donkey.

That last one is especially hard to swallow.

But we all want him to become a real boy because in the end, we all want to know that despite our foibles and mistakes, we still have a shot at redemption because deep down, we are good people. And when Pinnochio goes and gets swallowed by a whale to save his father, his true self shines through. So he skipped school and smoked a cigar? He got swallowed. BY A WHALE. This dude deserves it.

Also, think about this…

Did I just blow your mind?